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User blog:Athena Hawkins/Hawkinzene Ep. 1 ~ Super Mario 3D Dissatisfaction
---- ---- < Hawkinzene > Ep. 1: Super Mario 3D Dissatisfaction Greetings, everyone, welcome to our first official numbered issue of Hawkinzene, and our real introduction to the slow-moving Lapis blog series. Hawkinszene is my way of displaying my interests, thoughts, or opinions in a quick and fashionable manner that's convenient for both me and my potential audience, all the while driving off unneeded paranoia and anxiety. Simple enough, right? In our first issue, we're going to discuss my disillusionment with the Super Mario series, in particular its 3D outings like Sunshine and Odyssey. Before you read :Everything here is purely subjective, meaning that it is all just my personal opinion and that it should never be taken as fact. If you enjoy or resent what I present, that's perfectly fine, we all have our own special taste buds and you are always entitled to your own opinion. That being said, I will show all the passion or loathing I can for what is presented on these blogs, depending on its direction and provided subject, so always be warned for what is to come. Please also take important note that I never attempt to come off as a contrarian for the sake of being a contrarian; those types of people are boring and lame. :I have never played Super Mario Galaxy 2 nor Super Mario 3D Land, nor do I ever plan on playing either, so do not ask for my thoughts on those. Super Mario 64 There are only a small handful of 3D games out there that manage to be as iconic as Super Mario 64, a highly successful launch title for the Nintendo 64, Nintendo's home console from the fifth generation of video games. Widely successful and acclaimed, like many Mario titles that came before and after it, it would go on to be largely influential on the field of 3D level design and establish an archetype that would stick around for years upon years to come. With all of that in mind, it makes it hard for me to nitpick and critique 64, granted how new and bold it was for the time- it was an ambitious project, jammed with ideas and foundations that mostly worked. I'm just going to make this quick: Super Mario 64 is easily my favorite of the games presented on this list, or at least my most liked. With its choose-your-own-adventure game structure, I get to do much of this adventure the way I want to do it, and with 50 excess Power Stars beyond the mandatory 70 you need to collect to beat the game, it's a very flexible title that deserved the strong reception it got back in the mid-90's. Mario had a super-flexible and innovative moveset, moving in 360 directions felt so smooth and natural, and all of the game's levels felt like they were designed to take advantage of Mario's entire skillset. Though the game did hold a few tricky stars to gather here and there, nothing was too obnoxious, and it was accessible to 8-year-old me and still feels the same way to me twelve years later. Favorite courses include Tick Tock Clock and Lethal Lava Land. The game hardly felt like it aged, polygon monster Bowser aside. That said, I do have my problems and critiques with 64. I have strong disdain for getting booted out of a level for every time I gather a star, having to dive back in to go get another- a problem that becomes increasingly apparent on vertically stretching courses- such as Tall Tall Mountain or Rainbow Ride. Wall jumping is also a hellish task in this game; you have to rebound off of a wall almost immediately after touching it, or you'll just bump into it and fall. It's really clunky and rather unreliable unless you absolutely mastered it, and it's one of the few things the DS version did better. Lastly, the 100-coin stars felt like a lazy addition to the game and felt like random padding that made courses like Rainbow Ride particularly hellish, and resetting outside the castle after every (redundant) game over just got irritating after a while. The DS version of the game is worse than the original game, in my opinion. The concept of having more playable characters in the base game is great, but their implementation was very poorly done. The levels were never designed to take on their varying strengths and abilities- Luigi's gliding backflip is obscenely broken, for example, while Wario's low mobility and poor jumping height make him nearly worthless altogether. Yoshi being the game's starting character is an intriguing concept, but the game doesn't feel natural to play at all until you play as Mario. When I finally got Mario, I just stuck with him for most of the game. There are power stars for the new characters to specifically gain for themselves, and Luigi and Wario did respectively get the Invisible and Metal Caps as their primary abilities, but all of that was unnecessary- Mario could do all of that in the base game, and splitting it all up felt forced. To me, the DS version is little more than a showcase of what the system can do, ironically making itself worse than the original product in the process. Super Mario 64 is the only one of these games on the list that I can stand today, and even then, I only find it to be a great game, rather than something of perfection. There is a lot going for the game to me; I love its ambition and concepts and levels, with a few exceptions here and there, but there are definitely things that weigh it back from taking anything more than just the best 3D Mario title. Note: I played this game with the Classic Controller, the original Nintendo 64 controller is garbage Super Mario Sunshine A significant step down from its predecessor in nearly way besides its graphical presentation, Super Mario Sunshine was always the black sheep of the 3D games for me- I almost always forget about its existence when it comes to the Mario topic. I always saw Sunshine as just an exceptionally gimmicky and worse Super Mario 64 with wonky physics and an aged system of gameplay that took little inspiration or notes from other popular 3D platforming titles at the time. Though it is thematically very inspired and appealing, the gameplay is much the opposite and reliant on gimmicks. Wouldn't say they were worth sacrificing some of Mario's old moves for, but alright... I must say that Isle Delfino is very nice, and that its levels look gorgeous, but it gets all samey and kind of bland after a while; small changes to mix up the theming here and there, like with Pinna Park and Sirena Beach, don't necessarily negate this issue, don't even start with me. A jungle expedition could have been cool, maybe a sandy desert level or something like that too? Corona Mountain could have been a unique full level, as opposed to a half-assed "obstacle course" to the final boss. It really sucked that we only got 7 full worlds altogether in Sunshine, as opposed to FIFTEEN from 64- for a game that has as many Shine Sprites as there are Power Stars in its predecessor, it's kind of surprising how much padding out they did as opposed to making new and refreshing levels that could have taken advantage of theming changes and ideas. There's a new concept called blue coins in this game- instead of being worth 5 coins like in Super Mario 64, you can spend ten of them at a time in the plaza for Shine Sprites- up to 24. Now that's what I call padding! But the real issues with Sunshine belong to its gameplay. The physics and collision detection feel ridiculously off at times in Sunshine, with Mario sometimes awkwardly colliding with a platform at an unexpected angle and getting bumped off into his death. This is most apparent if you're not using F.L.U.D.D., a choice you will sometimes not have at all in the game's bonus challenges where you're only allowed to use Mario. F.L.U.D.D. is an interesting idea in theory, but ultimately comes off as gimmicky and awkward- the Hover nozzle is just a glorified double jump that feels significantly more painful and slow to use. Yoshi also feels rather out of place; he controls funkily in this game and felt like a last-minute addition. Though the Rocket and Turbo nozzles for F.L.U.D.D. are neat additions, they're nothing especially noteworthy and are kind of basic additions to the tool in the end. Don't get me wrong, this is all unique- Mario using water to blast apart foes and using it to get around is interesting! But it's the execution that came off as lame to me, really- just like with the physics and decision to retain the flaws of 64's game design (such as getting booted out of the level after collecting Shine Sprites). That's not to say Super Mario Sunshine has no unique boons at all, of course. I found its bosses to be more challenging, and fun, than those found in Super Mario 64 (I'm making these comparisons a lot huh) and greatly appreciate the unique plot premise, though I'm very divided on the voice acting and the introduction of Bowser Jr., one of my least beloved characters from the franchise. I also do enjoy some of its exclusive prospects, like its goofy redesign of King Boo and the unmistakable original soundtrack, by far one of gaming's greatest osts to date. I also do enjoy how the game looks, and feel that the graphics haven't aged poorly at all- it still looks like a good game in its presentation, even now. Though there are diamonds in the rough with Super Mario Sunshine, it's still a title I like far less than 64, and something I do not regret saying in the slightest. Sunshine feels like nothing more than a sequel to 64 with weird and forced gimmicks, wonky physics and controls, and a better soundtrack attached to it. It did have some ambition and creative control with its theming and premise, but everything falls flat with the gameplay, which was definitely not an improvement over 64's- at least, not to me. Super Mario Galaxy Now here comes Super Mario Galaxy, a critically acclaimed title on the Nintendo Wii that was a bestseller, which introduced us to the increasingly popular Rosalina character and which was followed up by a direct sequel. One of Nintendo's objectively strongest outings on their Nintendo Wii platform, of course it sold by the millions and raked a ton of cash in for Nintendo. As the boundaries for video game hardware and video games in general continued to get pushed to their absolute limits, and as the standards of quality in the market sharply increased over time, you couldn't make the same mistakes and troubles you did back in the mid-90's or your game's precious Metacritic score would suffer from your negligence. Unless you're a bulletproof angel, like Nintendo's Super Mario Galaxy duology. Repeating a point: I only played the first game, so any commentary on its sequel will not be presented here. I feel that from an objective standpoint, Galaxy absolutely deserves its wide acclaim, and I wouldn't complain if you considered it among gaming's best titles. There's no point in denying its success or ambition or strides, especially when looking at the comparatively poor Gamecube title that came right before it. However, it is by far the least favorite of the 3D games, and it can only be summed up by three words: the control scheme. To be completely honest, motion controls were always a massive turn-off for me- I'd always opt to use a Classic Controller or a Gamecube Controller when possible when playing games on the Wii. I really dislike handling the Wiimote no matter what position it is in; it marred my enjoyment of New Super Mario Bros. Wii and found little joy in Wii Sports for the same issue. It's just uncomfortable for me to use, really; using a standard controller for gaming just feels so much better and more convenient. Galaxy not having an option to use a normal controller really ruined the game for me near-instantaneously; it was a straining journey all the way through. Though, maybe my experience was marred by the fact that I had to buy a separate nunchuck just to play what would turn out to be surprisingly mediocre. Even if the controls were cast off to the side, I still have my fair share of problems with this game. For example, I really dislike the more "linear" approach the game's levels had- in 64, I felt like I could choose my own path and go wherever I desired for as long as I had enough Power Stars or whatever to do it, but Galaxy does the Sunshine way of things and makes everything noticeably less open, with more conventional level design that would be broken down even further for 3D World, just without the planetary elements and all of that. And though we did get many more levels this time around, a lot of them felt significantly more claustrophobic and too on-the-nose with their themings, meaning what you see is really what you get for the rest of the whole level with only a few rare things here and there to switch things up. Thankfully, Galaxy at least does return some of Mario's previously lost moves from 64 and does make efforts to innovate with the Spin and Star Bit systems, but I cannot fully enjoy most of it thanks to the design choice of basing the controls exclusively around the Wiimote. Also, the game's plot (aside from Rosalina's origins) is really uninteresting, when compared to Sunshine's. There was little drive for me to play the game, only finished it because I felt I had to. The game also still pulls you out of a level for every Power Star you get, so it's not as perfect as you quite think. I'm really sick of that trend. The game's upsides include a stellar soundtrack, stunning high-quality graphics, and well-made boss battles that for the most part make me not care about the controls since they're fun. It's really anything but the actual gameplay itself for me- even though I had a lot of issues with how Sunshine felt and played, I could at least get a quick grasp on it since its gameplay was very familial to me. Galaxy was very different with its gameplay and direction, on the other hand, and used a controller I personally found significantly more uncomfortable than the Gamecube's or even their classic controller. Bleh. That's as negative as I'm getting, I think? Super Mario 3D World Just six years later, Nintendo would release the also-acclaimed Super Mario 3D World for the Nintendo Wii U, a special flop among their line of home consoles. It is very different from its home console predecessors, opting to be an admittedly somewhat interesting take on the New Super Mario Bros. series, just taken to the 3D plane and reworked to be suitable for 4-player action. However, it is still just New Super Mario Bros. U brought into the third dimension, just obsessed with its brand-new cat powerup and having a slightly better aesthetic running through the entirety of it. And all of this came at the loss of what made its predecessors so unique and interesting- you won't be seeing much explorative gameplay here, nor will you be seeing innovation and concepts that made Sunshine and Galaxy at least stand out as unique games. No longer do you run around open 3D levels collecting Power Stars or Shine Sprites, nor do you explore hub worlds exploring the environment and looking for new levels to go to. Instead, you walk across dull world maps, exploring the levels all in a linear order, with the path sometimes branching off to grant the player two choice as to where to go next... nowhere as intriguing, and nowhere as filled with spirit and/or charm as opposed to Peach's Castle, Isle Delfino, or even the Comet Observatory. You do get to have a bit of interaction with the map, able to go around the map free-roam style and collect coins and hit blocks, but it's just not the same. The levels themselves kinda speak for themselves: your sole objective is to just make it to the flag pole, (somewhat) optionally collecting Green Stars as you go to unlock more levels. As you go, you may hit blocks to utilize a number of power-ups, several unique to this title and others returning from older games from the franchise. I personally found the execution of the power-ups to be interesting and fun, and there are a number of screwball options that only Nintendo could get away with, but there's very little truly "new" content to see here. All the new content the game offers is just expansions of things the series has done before, and an overemphasis on the fairly underwhelming cat power-up. With the exception of Captain Toad's levels, which are admittedly very interesting and fun to play through- though it was never enough to make me buy Treasure Tracker. Admittedly, I did have more fun playing this generic title as opposed to Sunshine or Galaxy because of the stronger controls and uninterrupted fun, but the lack of ambition and feel in this game really made it lack an identity to live by, and its switch from open gameplay to linear progression was one that I strongly disliked. Several of the levels had individual themings and concepts to separate them from the uninteresting groups of levels from the NSMB series, but none of them really made enough efforts to be truly out there, simply revisiting old concepts and making them seem new and interesting. There are a small handful of exceptions, actually, but they never really show off the Wii U's capabilities enough and some of them were just really not that memorable. Though most of this game's boss fights were fantastic, none were what I'd exactly call innovative or groundbreaking, and the Boom Boom fights continued to be as stale and uninteresting as ever. I do like the game's items, I find the Cat Bell and Double Cherry to be immensely fun to toy around with and find them among the series' best power-ups to date, but again nothing is really groundbreaking or really impressive here. 3D World played it really safe with its execution, which is a crying shame, because there is a lot of unique stuff they could have done with this game that they just didn't do. Just bringing back Chargin' Chucks won't get this game in my hall of fame, Nintendo. It's not like 3D World is a "bad game" all around or anything. Its presentation is among the sharpest and best of any Mario game we've ever received, for example, and looks super-sharp on the Wii U's gamepad. The soundtrack, while not being my thing specifically, is still nonetheless incredible and unbeatable to this day- it is so good to me, in fact, that Galaxy's ost completely paled. That's just my opinion, though. The gameplay, while fairly generic and not remotely groundbreaking, was generally fun and I think that's all that really matters. Though I did say this game played it really safe, a handful of level design choices and gameplay structure did involve risktaking, and I'd say for the better, since this game is a fully solid and harmless experience all around. It at least looks stronger than 3D Land, a game I never plan on getting. Overall, I'd say 3D World is a good 3D Mario game, but also suffers from being the least ambitious, the least innovative or groundbreaking, and by far being the least interesting of the group. If you already played 3D Land or the New Super Mario Bros. series, then you've seen it all before- and I'd therefore give this game a skip rating. If you haven't, however, there's bundles of fun to be had here and I think it's a proper way of familiarizing yourself with the franchise... with the odd assumption that you've never played a Mario game before, that is. Super Mario Odyssey We've finally arrived at the most recent of the 3D Mario games, Super Mario Odyssey. Released in late 2017 as a title for the Nintendo Switch, Odyssey is by far the most experimental and unique bundle of the bunch presented here, both working in and against its favor. Rivaling the launch title The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild as the highest-rated Nintendo Switch game, it was met with universal acclaim and marked a return to the gameplay formula introduced in Super Mario 64, just significantly altered and changed up in ways that (again) work and don't work. There is a lot to say about Super Mario Odyssey for me, given how new it is and how much it surprised me when I got it on launch day, so stick around while I review the product for what it is. This review will be filled with warm praise and harsh criticism, so bear with me if this "review" becomes a long list of that. I vastly enjoyed playing Super Mario Odyssey my first time through, so this is where the praise kicks in. I love games that give me an incentive to explore and look around, and Odyssey is no exception, with loads of Power Moons to be found everywhere throughout the majority of the game's individual worlds. It felt rewarding to explore the deepest and darkest corners of every level, harvesting these moons and carrying them back to the Odyssey ship in loads, all the while knowing the game won't kick you out of the world for each one you collect. Though the worlds do bear the linear elements found in the level design of 3D World, the checkpoints are more-so warp points for getting around, and they almost never obstruct your ability to go back and see what you missed, since it is all as explorative as Super Mario 64. It really helps that I can do that, gather hordes of moons, and bring them back to the Odyssey and have them all be absorbed into the ship at the same time, with little hassle. The lack of a lives system is also beneficial to the gameplay, with no game overs sending you back to the castle grounds like in 64, with instead a 10-coin loss being your only punishment. It may sound weak at first, but remember that you can use coins to purchase numerous costumes and outfits to customize Mario or on a variety of other services, so your currency is fairly important to keep note of in Super Mario Odyssey. Purple regional coins can be spent on special memorabilia from each world, which is really cool and gives these areas a lot of flavor- especially if you remember that each world has brochures made out for them that describe what they are and what happens in them. How can I review Odyssey, however, without mentioning its key elements? Let's go over Mario's moveset first- in this game, Mario gains a sentient ghost friend known as "Cappy", who takes the form of Mario's cap in this game (for his was destroyed in the opening cutscene)- and he has a large influence on Mario's moveset. Mario gains most of his moveset back from Super Mario 64, with a completely new set of moves possible with his sentient cap friend- he can dive, long jump, ground pound, but most importantly, he can toss out Cappy to use him as a one-time platform. Most interesting of all, he can actually toss Cappy to take control of the game's various enemies, making use of their best assets and tools to his advantage for various scenarios. You can find yourself using them for platforming's sake, beating up bosses, or even gaining Power Moons. Mario's moveset is painfully expansive and diverse in this game, and he's never really controlled better... it's a return to form, following the disappointments I personally found Sunshine, Galaxy and 3D World to be. There is so much to love here, there was clearly a lot of ambition and love put into this game, found in nearly every single aspect of the game, down to the game's aesthetics and the detailing on Mario's individual hair strands. But there's also plenty of things that I dislike, or even hate, about Super Mario Odyssey. This is where the fun stops and where the criticisms surface. Though I adore a good number of the game's concepts and ideas, and find it to be the most groundbreaking Mario game of them all, there were a number of half-baked ideas and executions that were disappointing. The possessing mechanic, though interestingly done, is fairly shallow at its core- most of the enemy movesets are really limited and some of them are clunky and slow to use. I adored the bird enemies in the Bowser Kingdom and had fun with these stretchy leg enemies in the Wooden Kingdom, but some like the Goomba and Hammer Bro. just weren't fun to use at all, both sluggish and shallow to a degree of disappointment. Others were too gimmicky for their own good, either being awkward to control or simply being bad to play. Though I enjoy collecting Power Moons, many were either far too easy to gather or way too tough or tedious to nab for their own good, and there were so many that it stopped feeling rewarding to grab them a hundred moons in. The Power Stars felt rewarding to gain in 64, and even the Shine Sprites from Sunshine, because you had to work towards them to gain them, and the objectives required to receive them weren't always overly ridiculous or outright frustrating- but most importantly, they rarely felt like padding. Actually, there was always a real objective or incentive to get them- that's what felt best about them. The challenge of Odyssey is primarily found in its post-game content; there is unfortunately almost no difficulty curve in the main game, with levels remaining consistently easy throughout as you go along, with most of the challenge coming from attempting to control the occasional few poorly implemented possessed enemy movesets. I have minor nitpicks too, like why a lot of the story stuff wasn't really ever explained for a game that tried to be more in-depth and interesting with its plot direction, and why a lot of controls and moves were locked exclusively for motion control users. Though most of the worlds in Odyssey felt fun to play, some were lacking in interesting themes in spite of the efforts of the brochures to flesh them out more; Galaxy had a lot of interesting planets to play on that really experimented with and challenged Mario's traditional world themes. Here is Odyssey, having slightly more fleshed out water worlds. Fun. The bosses are mostly fun and fine to play against, but the Broodals were really nothing special and quite repetitive to fight against, and the repeat bosses felt like they had an enormous, unwelcome spike in difficulty when they didn't really need it. When I played the game a second time, I didn't feel a reason to really complete it again when all of the game's flaws began to shine out more- I didn't feel any motivation or drive to finish the game a second time. And a lot of this game's flaws I think surface from having quantity over quality, most visible in the game's 1000 Power Moons and how crammed the small kingdoms were with them. I also have to mention that beyond "Jump Up, Super Star!", I can't name a single song from the game- this game had a really forgettable soundtrack, paling in comparison to 3D World's or Galaxy's by a looooooooooong shot. My biggest problem with the game, however, comes with the thing that I liked most about 64 that wasn't present at all in Odyssey: freedom to go to wherever I wanted provided I had enough Power Stars to do so. If Odyssey had a hub world and let you go to individual kingdoms, with Power Stars letting the Odyssey continually travel further and further, I would have liked it so much more. If they dropped a lot of the Power Moons and gave the player meaningful objectives to collecting them, that would have also been nice. Mario could just go into a world, gather the Power Moons he's found there, and then use the Odyssey to move back to the hub world. It could have been the Comet Observatory or even Peach's Castle for all I care. Though I think Odyssey took a lot of bold steps and is my second favorite 3D Mario game, outshining the previous three games before it by a fair margin, I only think it's just a "good game" that could have been executed so much better. If they made it so that it was quality over quantity (it really isn't) and improved a lot of the things I personally disliked about the game, then it could have been the best of the bunch. But it isn't, it's a game with polarizing strengths and weaknesses, and one that I don't hold in anywhere as high of regards as I did right after the game's release in late 2017. I'd rather play this game than Galaxy or Sunshine, but the lack of a difficulty curve and a lack of incentive to actually play this damn game really hurt it in the end- I at least felt the challenge was ramping up in all of the games mentioned before this one. Why I'd rather play Sonic Adventure 2 over any of these titles It's crystal clear that I don't really enjoy what the majority the 3D Mario games do, and it's even more clear that I found them all to be disappointing in their own ways, barring the original game due to being an experimental title as a whole (it was a fresh, fresh concept for its time). Don't get me wrong, none of these games are objectively bad and are mostly deserving of their praise and awards and honors, I just never had a particularly fantastic time with any of them barring in sweet and short bursts. To me personally, none of these titles are anything special, and I never felt sorry to lose any of them in the house fire that occurred in November of 2018. I would like to get my hands on Super Mario 64 again for speedrunning purposes, but that's it. I hold no desire to play any of the other games ever again, unless someone offered me $300 so I can go buy myself a Nintendo Switch and play what really matters (Super Smash Bros. Ultimate). For years, I always felt the itch to say that Sonic Adventure 2 rivals and outclasses these games in nearly every way, and now I think it's time to say it: it is better, at least from my subjective and biased standpoint. What do I like about Sonic Adventure 2 so much to make it knock any 3D Mario game out of the ballpark? The absolutely kickass and unbeatable soundtrack it possesses, the ridiculously fun level design foundations for Sonic and Shadow alike, the orgasmic fast pacing and acceptable difficulty curve, the "cool" and "edge" factors... there's so much to say, here. I love the multiple paths that can be taken in the levels for the speedy hedgehogs, find it greatly rewarding to take high paths for extra lives or find Lost Chao, and (mostly) enjoy racking up points to get a solid A rank at the end. I don't know where to begin how much I love ranking systems in games; I wouldn't stop getting A ranks in Sonic Adventure 2 until every level had one on all five of their missions. Even though their gameplay is inferior to Sonic/Shadow's, I do enjoy playing as Tails/Eggman and Knuckles/Rouge for the most part, and like to take my time treasure hunting or shooting away when I'm not blasting away through Metal Harbor or White Jungle. Wild Canyon and Cosmic Wall are obvious highlights. I haven't even gotten started on just how solid and polished the multiplayer is, or how much fun the Chao are to raise- there is a lot of conflicting stuff in this game, but I think for the most part, it all bundles together rather nicely. Obviously this game hasn't aged anywhere as gracefully as your average Mario game, and there's a lot of things to be found in this game that wouldn't meet the modern standards for gaming at all. And there's a lot of stuff I'd nitpick about this game, too. But for all it's worth, and if I brush away the smaller nitpicks and drawbacks the game has, I find it to be superior to almost anything the Mario series has released. It caters to my itches and keeps me coming back 13 years later. And that's my story for today. EDIT: I'd like to make it clear that I know that all of these Mario games are super-different from Sonic Adventure 2- I just personally think that one game is more suited for my tastes than any of the aforementioned games and that's why I didn't enjoy them as much as this one Category:Blog posts